Little Doers 2014

Little Doers 2014

Welcome!

Little Doers is a not-for-profit association which believes that children of a young age can feel a great sense of empowerment and accomplishment from learning about causes, choosing a charity and putting in effort to support it. We are not competative, and we encourage all our Little Doers to simply do their best. Learning to give is a lifelong journey. We believe it's not only how you change the world but how you treat the people around you.

What?

26th October 2014 will see the Melbourne Kids’ Fun Run take place in Malvern, offering your children the chance to run a 500m/1km/2km track (with an adult), get some sponsorship from family and friends, choose a charity to support and learn about the charity, do crafty charity activities and Meet the Charities in The Giving Tent. What could be better?

Who?

Children aged 0 – 10 are invited to take part. Children who are too young to walk can be pushed in a pram or trike but we do encourage children who are 3+ to try the run and feel pride at the end! This year we have introduced a new 500 metre mini-run.

When?

The run will take place on 26th October from 9am-12noon.

Check in on the day starts at 9am to receive a t-shirt with warm-up activities taking place to keep kids busy and the run itself will commence at 10am. From 10.30 The Giving Tent will open itself to craft activities and opportunities to meet the charity representatives. 11am will see the Live Music begin as families find a space to picnic. At 12 noon, exhausted, we will all go home.

Where?

Malvern Gardens is located on the corner of Spring St, Malvern, between High st and Malvern Rd. It is near Glenferrie Rd. There is free parking available on all four sides of the park. Please see the map below

Registration Notes

If you register as a family, you will complete details for each child and have a family fundraising page supporting a single charity.

If your children wish to support different charities then you will need to register each child by logging out and then logging in again or using an alternative email address. Please email littledoers@mail.com if you require help.

Parents: Please do not enter your own D.O.B and t-shirt size; please ensure that you DO enter t-shirts size, choice of run and D.O.B details for each child who is participating.

Stay in Touch

Check out www.littledoers.org for more information about the charities and event as well as kid info-sheets for each charity including guided questions and suggested books.

Parent-friendly descriptions can be found below but for kids under 10 years old here is some information for you.

Australian Conservation Foundation stands for ecological sustainability – that means making sure our world still exists in a healthy way in the future. By campaigning on climate change, and ocean, river and forest protection, ACF promotes the importance of our natural environment in helping all animals to survive and in achieving human wellbeing. Donations and volunteers help them do their important work.

Filling the Gap recruits volunteer dentists to provide emergency and comprehensive dental care to work in partnership with Aboriginal controlled health services where dental treatment is limited or non-existent.

The Pyjama Foundation train volunteer “pyjama angels” who visit children in foster care each week to read aloud. This gives children who statistically have the poorest educational outcomes, important literacy and numeracy skills they would otherwise often miss out on.

FareShare provides free, tasty, nutritious meals to Victoria’s hungry people who cannot afford to buy them, using donated food that is unused from supermarkets, farmers and markets. Fareshare appreciate donations and volunteers to help them do their important work.

Little Doers 2014

The Pyjama Foundation screen and train volunteers called Pyjama Angels who are matched with a child in foster care. They visit the same child every week, for 1.5 hours to read books aloud, play educational games and work on their numeracy skills.Read more

Filling the Gap recruits volunteer dentists to work in Aboriginal health services, where it is very hard to get any affordable dental care and where there are long waiting lists for treatment. Read more

Founder and Director of The Pyjama Foundation and Queensland Australian of the Year 2009

When Bronwyn Sheehan realised that children in care were not being given the same opportunities in life as other children she decided to do something about it…

“I founded The Pyjama Foundation 8 years ago now, to contribute to the lives of kids in care. I wanted to do something that would be positive and that would have the benefit of changing the direction of their precious little lives. Education equates to quality of life.

The reason I started The Pyjama Foundation is my oldest daughter Kate went through primary school with a child in care. I met her foster carer and I was blown away by her commitment to these children. This lady had been a carer for 30 years and had had over 100 children in her home. One day I was visiting her and she had a baby boy in her arms who was only 18 months old. This little boy had been in care for less than 24 hours, had the worst cold I have ever seen and had arrived in foster care in the middle of January with a Coles bag full of winter clothes. The reason he had winter clothes was to cover up his precious body, which was covered in bruises. He had big brown eyes, and if the eyes are the window to the soul, then his little soul had experienced far too much already. He broke my heart. I knew in that moment that I wanted to do something for kids in foster care.”

The issue is that there are now 39 000 children in foster care in Australia. These children have been removed from their original homes for their own safety, and have often missed out on many positive experiences life has to offer. This pool of children also has the worst educational outcomes of any group of children in Australia (AIHW). Statistics also show that 92% of children in foster care have below average reading skills by the time they are only seven years of age, and it is a struggle for them to catch up.

The single most important activity you can do to improve your children’s literacy skills is to read book aloud to them. So that is what The Pyjama Foundation does. We screen and train volunteers called Pyjama Angels, our Pyjama Angels are matched with a child in foster care, they visit the same child every week, for 1.5 hours to read books aloud, play educational games and work on their numeracy skills. I am surrounded by fantastic volunteers, who are so committed to the child they visit. Some of my volunteers have been with their child for eight years. The relationship which forms is fantastic, the children are often waiting on the footpath for their Pyjama Angel to arrive.

Every year, two million Australians will experience hunger. But, over the same period, we’ll also waste 200kg of food for every man, woman and child in the nation.

This doesn’t make any sense. Melbourne food charity FareShare is doing something about it by rescuing surplus, quality food from supermarkets, farmers and other businesses.

With the help of 800 regular volunteers, FareShare cooks this food into 25,000 free nutritious meals a week for Victorian charities – such as soup vans, homeless shelters, food banks and school breakfast programs. We do this in Australia’s largest charity kitchen, based in Abbotsford.

By ‘rescuing’ food, we mean that it would otherwise be wasted, ending up in landfill. And in saving food from landfill, we also do our bit for the planet by helping to cut methane pollution and reducing demand for new food products.

We are a not-for-profit community organisation operating on a modest budget – thanks to the generosity of philanthropic foundations, businesses and private donors.

Every $75 FareShare receives from fundraising allows us to cook and distribute 100 meals. Please donate to FareShare and help us to continue supporting the most vulnerable people in our community with free, nutritious meals.

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) stands for ecological sustainability. We get to the heart of environmental problems by tackling the underlying social and economic causes. We work across society to influence urgent, transformative action to deliver lasting change on the scale required to secure a sustainable environment. We bring people together to champion the true value of our environment and its critical role in sustaining all other systems and in achieving human wellbeing.

Our history

The story of the Australian Conservation Foundation is one of vision, commitment and achievement. It is a remarkable history of people and place and bears witness to an environment organisation that is a driving force for change in Australia.

Our success stories

ACF has been part of many great conservation successes. For almost five decades, the ACF community has taken positive steps toward the permanent protection of Australia’s most special places.

Governance

For almost half a century, ACF has been a strong voice for the environment promoting solutions through research, consultation, education and partnerships.

Business partners

ACF's partnerships with various Australian businesses and community organisations who support our work and with whom we collaborate to promote and deliver a more sustainable Australia.

Business supporters

ACF’s business supporters make a crucial contribution to our work by providing generous donations and pro bono services.

The Pyjama Foundation screen and train volunteers called Pyjama Angels who are matched with a child in foster care. They visit the same child every week, for 1.5 hours to read books aloud, play educational games and work on their numeracy skills.Read more

Filling the Gap recruits volunteer dentists to work in Aboriginal health services, where it is very hard to get any affordable dental care and where there are long waiting lists for treatment. Read more

Founder and Director of The Pyjama Foundation and Queensland Australian of the Year 2009

When Bronwyn Sheehan realised that children in care were not being given the same opportunities in life as other children she decided to do something about it…

“I founded The Pyjama Foundation 8 years ago now, to contribute to the lives of kids in care. I wanted to do something that would be positive and that would have the benefit of changing the direction of their precious little lives. Education equates to quality of life.

The reason I started The Pyjama Foundation is my oldest daughter Kate went through primary school with a child in care. I met her foster carer and I was blown away by her commitment to these children. This lady had been a carer for 30 years and had had over 100 children in her home. One day I was visiting her and she had a baby boy in her arms who was only 18 months old. This little boy had been in care for less than 24 hours, had the worst cold I have ever seen and had arrived in foster care in the middle of January with a Coles bag full of winter clothes. The reason he had winter clothes was to cover up his precious body, which was covered in bruises. He had big brown eyes, and if the eyes are the window to the soul, then his little soul had experienced far too much already. He broke my heart. I knew in that moment that I wanted to do something for kids in foster care.”

The issue is that there are now 39 000 children in foster care in Australia. These children have been removed from their original homes for their own safety, and have often missed out on many positive experiences life has to offer. This pool of children also has the worst educational outcomes of any group of children in Australia (AIHW). Statistics also show that 92% of children in foster care have below average reading skills by the time they are only seven years of age, and it is a struggle for them to catch up.

The single most important activity you can do to improve your children’s literacy skills is to read book aloud to them. So that is what The Pyjama Foundation does. We screen and train volunteers called Pyjama Angels, our Pyjama Angels are matched with a child in foster care, they visit the same child every week, for 1.5 hours to read books aloud, play educational games and work on their numeracy skills. I am surrounded by fantastic volunteers, who are so committed to the child they visit. Some of my volunteers have been with their child for eight years. The relationship which forms is fantastic, the children are often waiting on the footpath for their Pyjama Angel to arrive.

Every year, two million Australians will experience hunger. But, over the same period, we’ll also waste 200kg of food for every man, woman and child in the nation.

This doesn’t make any sense. Melbourne food charity FareShare is doing something about it by rescuing surplus, quality food from supermarkets, farmers and other businesses.

With the help of 800 regular volunteers, FareShare cooks this food into 25,000 free nutritious meals a week for Victorian charities – such as soup vans, homeless shelters, food banks and school breakfast programs. We do this in Australia’s largest charity kitchen, based in Abbotsford.

By ‘rescuing’ food, we mean that it would otherwise be wasted, ending up in landfill. And in saving food from landfill, we also do our bit for the planet by helping to cut methane pollution and reducing demand for new food products.

We are a not-for-profit community organisation operating on a modest budget – thanks to the generosity of philanthropic foundations, businesses and private donors.

Every $75 FareShare receives from fundraising allows us to cook and distribute 100 meals. Please donate to FareShare and help us to continue supporting the most vulnerable people in our community with free, nutritious meals.

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) stands for ecological sustainability. We get to the heart of environmental problems by tackling the underlying social and economic causes. We work across society to influence urgent, transformative action to deliver lasting change on the scale required to secure a sustainable environment. We bring people together to champion the true value of our environment and its critical role in sustaining all other systems and in achieving human wellbeing.

Our history

The story of the Australian Conservation Foundation is one of vision, commitment and achievement. It is a remarkable history of people and place and bears witness to an environment organisation that is a driving force for change in Australia.

Our success stories

ACF has been part of many great conservation successes. For almost five decades, the ACF community has taken positive steps toward the permanent protection of Australia’s most special places.

Governance

For almost half a century, ACF has been a strong voice for the environment promoting solutions through research, consultation, education and partnerships.

Business partners

ACF's partnerships with various Australian businesses and community organisations who support our work and with whom we collaborate to promote and deliver a more sustainable Australia.

Business supporters

ACF’s business supporters make a crucial contribution to our work by providing generous donations and pro bono services.